Thursday, November 26, 2009

Warsong Gulch Weekend

So today is friday and you know what that means? Warsong Gulch weekend of course (seriously, its in the title... you should have known.)

Warsong Gulch is one of the first, most basic and smallest (both in size and players) battleground. It is a 10 vs 10 match with each side starting in essentially symmetric bases. Horde get the south base and Alliance have the northern base.

The objective here is simple. Capture the flag. If you did not play that game as a child I pity you... seriously. For those of you with severely repressed childhoods; in capture the flag there are two teams each with their own flag. You must take them enemy flag from their base and get it back to your own. The same in Warsong Gulch (WSG) you just need to do it between 1-3 times within 25 min and the team to reach 3 first or have more after the 25 min is the winner.

At the back of each base (the extreme north and south of the map depending on your team) are the flags. This is what

the whole battle (despite what some people do during the battle) is about. To get into / out of the base you can take a few paths. To get into a base there are 2 basic paths. When facing a base from mid field, directly in front of you will be an entrance to what is called the tunnel (for obvious reasons). The tunnel goes directly from midfield to the flag room with one possible off route that leads to the roof. While the most direct route you can not be mounted in the tunnel. When looking at the base from midfield, to your right will be what is know as the ramp. It leads around one side of the base and up to two other entrances, one leading directly to the flag room, the other going to the second floor (which you can jump off into the flag room). You can use a mount for most of the route while going up ramp.

You can get back out the same way you came in. Here is where a bit of strategy comes in if you are the one with the flag (if you don't have the flag you better be following the guy who does... most of the time). So lets go over reasons to chose each.

Ramp

1) Gives you more escape options.

2) More open allowing you to avoid combat all together where as if there are enemies in the tunnel... you will be fighting them.

3) Often much harder for enemies to pinpoint you.

Tunnel

1) More direct

2) Benefit of the speed boost buff which you can pick up for 100% extra speed for a few seconds.

3) Much easier to control the one exit route for you team to protect you.

WSG is a very small BG in terms of team times and this means that more than any other BG every team member counts and it is very important to stay together as a team in this BG. At the same time breaking an enemies coherency is a good way to win this BG.

Most of the time you will find people who say 'stay out of mid' 'fight in the flag room' 'don't fight in mid'. In most BGs this would be the best option but WSG is different in design and I would say control of midfield is actually the best strategy. The basic idea is to have the majority of your team stay in a group in mid. Kill any enemies they come across. The key here is that if any enemies do manage to get your flag your entire mid team must quickly figure out where they are and kill them.

In addition to the mid team, 2 of the fastest / most survivable people need to rush the flag room and get the flag out. You don't need to worry to much if they follow you out, as long as you control midfield, once you are out of their base your team can protect you. If the defense in the flag room is to heavy than you can either try distracting them out of the room so one person can ninja it or your mid team can help break the defense before returning to their usual job.

I find this to be most effective as most random WSG group will be doing some form of this just by default. To make it truly effective it will just require someone who is good at paying attention to the map and where the enemies are and is vocal enough to make even idiots listen. More than any other BG, random groups will benefit mainly from sticking and working together. Coherency is more important than any one strategy.

Unfortunately the small size of WSG means that gear and skill of each individual will play a big role here so in one way all the good tactics won't help you if you get stuck with terrible team mates.

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About Me

I have been playing WoW for 4 year, been through 3 accounts and many many guilds. I have done just about everything this game has to offer and through it all I have found the Battleground system and world PvP to be the most fun thing in the game. I now dedicate my WoW time to the perfection of these things and the attempt to not yell at my computer when I have to deal with idiots on my team.